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Sometimes people write iot projects and target the pi because they are familiar with it (it's like a computer with gpio) when their use case could be better se

by kubota 4y ago

Sometimes people write iot projects and target the pi because they are familiar with it (it's like a computer with gpio) when their use case could be better served by a less powerful microcontroller such as the esp32. Perhaps people in this group can use this as an opportunity to learn esp32 development. It's arduino ide compatible and has good support on platformio.

gambiting 4y ago
That's what the Pico is meant to be for. In my experience RP2040 equipped boards are cheaper than similar ESP32 boards, and they both run MicroPython.
- nottorp 4y ago
  I don't know, I tried to use micropython on some esp32 board and ran out of ram after the first few tests. Maybe my board was just ram starved, but my impression is you want to go bare metal with the ESP.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Depends what you're doing I guess. My most complex project is a network enabled display that shows all the stats from my PC, it queries my machine every second and displays graphs for temperature and GPU/CPU usage. No issues with micropython and an ESP32 board doing that.
- chasd00 4y ago
  The rp2040 as an Adafruit Feather works great for me. No floating point unit though. I have an old Pi Zero W and I love it. I watch Adafruit for the new version constantly but no luck.
mastax 4y ago
Even the ESP32 is a bit "like a computer" compared to most microcontrollers. It's usually used with its stock RTOS which has its own tasks for WiFi, HTTPS, etc. and has a filesystem. Your apps are separate modules inside the RTOS system which sticks around. That's not a super unusual setup for a microcontroller system, though those types of systems were often larger industrial systems running WindRiver VxWorks, etc. not cheap chips for your IoT lightbulbs. Even when using an RTOS my perception is the most common setup is that the RTOS is just compiled and linked into your firmware image like any other library. It was a bit of a culture shock when I started using ESP32s because I can't buy STM32s anymore. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to embedded systems and I didn't like the idea of having someone else's code control so much of the chip, but it's the pragmatic choice.

by kubota 4y ago

gambiting 4y ago

That's what the Pico is meant to be for. In my experience RP2040 equipped boards are cheaper than similar ESP32 boards, and they both run MicroPython.

nottorp 4y ago
I don't know, I tried to use micropython on some esp32 board and ran out of ram after the first few tests. Maybe my board was just ram starved, but my impression is you want to go bare metal with the ESP.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Depends what you're doing I guess. My most complex project is a network enabled display that shows all the stats from my PC, it queries my machine every second and displays graphs for temperature and GPU/CPU usage. No issues with micropython and an ESP32 board doing that.
chasd00 4y ago
The rp2040 as an Adafruit Feather works great for me. No floating point unit though. I have an old Pi Zero W and I love it. I watch Adafruit for the new version constantly but no luck.

mastax 4y ago

Even the ESP32 is a bit "like a computer" compared to most microcontrollers. It's usually used with its stock RTOS which has its own tasks for WiFi, HTTPS, etc. and has a filesystem. Your apps are separate modules inside the RTOS system which sticks around. That's not a super unusual setup for a microcontroller system, though those types of systems were often larger industrial systems running WindRiver VxWorks, etc. not cheap chips for your IoT lightbulbs. Even when using an RTOS my perception is the most common setup is that the RTOS is just compiled and linked into your firmware image like any other library. It was a bit of a culture shock when I started using ESP32s because I can't buy STM32s anymore. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to embedded systems and I didn't like the idea of having someone else's code control so much of the chip, but it's the pragmatic choice.